God is committed to changing you. And changing you means something more than living an obedient, good, moral life. In fact, Jesus didn’t die so you could obey God (though it includes that). He died for something greater.

To claim to be a Christian is to believe your old self has been crucified with Christ and your new self has been raised with Christ. This new self, though, is an image not made or molded in your own reflection or to your own liking. It is one (re)made in the reflection of Christ Jesus, the perfect image of God. When we “turn to the Lord,” we behold him and in him see and experience God’s glory and joy. An odd kind of joy, to be sure, if we don’t share or understand it.

In a covenant of marriage there are three directions to be maintained. First, the covenant between a husband and his wife and a wife and her husband. Second, the covenant between the husband and God and the wife and God. But third, and most importantly, the covenant between God and the husband and wife—his promise, his commitment, his faithfulness to lead them, guide them, provide for them, and change them.

God has made a covenant with you in Christ and Christ has kept that covenant for you with God. Both sides have committed themselves to loving you, to leading you, to providing for you, to protecting you, and most of all, to transforming you. Your side is walking in and walking out that transformation by the power of God’s Spirit.

No, Jesus didn’t die so that you could obey him. He died so that he could make you new—so that you might know and experience the new and abundant life of God in/as your obedience, not because of it.